It would be a funny thing if that tangle of occult phenomena variously called mesmerism, hypnotism, thought reading, etc., should disturb the balance of European politics, but it is not altogether impossible. The latest advices from Servia begin to show the true inwardness of Nathalie's expulsion and Milan's abdication, and road much like the Dis Debar trial in New York. Mme. Artemisia Christech, the wife of the prime minister, has been doing a great many things to the king in the last year until it is the accepted belief of Servian court circles that he has no will left of his own.
It appears that King Milan has been her chosen subject. Her influence over him has long been known, but it was not suspected that it had been obtained in this extraordinary way. When he was urged not to abdicate, however, his manner was strange and his answer, "It's no use, I must do it," coupled with similar eccentricities on a former occasion, give rise to a general conviction that Mme. Artemisia has been running the government by hypnotism, a new and highly interesting departure in statecraft.
Hypnotism, by the way, is taking such an important part in public affairs lately that it is rather startling. It has been used in the place of chloroform for some time in surgical operations in Paris, and, when in a recent murder case there, it was charged that the murderer had hypnotised the victim and forced her to kill herself, public opinion accepted the possibility of the fact in a way quite remarkable.—London Correspondent of New York Times.
